


Unfurled

by extree



Series: Dark Castle [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark Castle, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8005570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extree/pseuds/extree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another day, another magical mishap at the Dark Castle. A bit of a big one this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfurled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookwormappreciationlife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwormappreciationlife/gifts).



> A gift for a very skilled, talented, kind, fun person. <3
> 
>  
> 
> (And an apology to everyone else for vanishing for so long. I'm sorry. I'm still finishing Other Suns. Things are different now and have gotten more difficult, but I'm still finishing it. Thank you for all your kind and concerned comments, and I'm sorry for worrying you.)

Rumplestiltskin had planned to make a grander entrance that summer evening, but the tremendous noise of shattering glass and colliding furniture that greeted him when he teleported himself to the great oaken doors of the Dark Castle called for prompter action.

With a fireball crackling in his hand just in case the cause of the commotion was something a little more sinister than his clumsy maid, he transported himself into the main hall where it became instantly apparent that all hell had broken loose.

Or a fairly big chunk of it at least, in the unmistakable form of a dragon.

There, huddled in a corner near the door, was a carriage-sized reptile covered in scales the color of pearl. With two white leathery wings and a thick tail almost as long as its body, the creature made for rather a conspicuous sight. It seemed oddly calm in the midst of the scene of destruction, but that observation didn’t stop Rumplestiltskin’s dark heart from speeding up and then sinking horribly in his chest when he thought of -

“Belle?” he called out, frantically scanning the room for a sign of her.

The tentative rustle of a wing jolted him back a step, debris crunching under his boots. The floor was strewn with bits of broken things. Furniture. Glass. Stone. The great table was mostly intact due to its sheer stubborn mass. It formed a barrier Rumplestiltskin was relieved to have now that the dragon was beginning to budge. But not nearly as relieved as he would have been had he heard Belle’s voice calling out in response, or felt that telltale tingling tug of his name being spoken in invocation.

“Belle, can you hear me?”

The plea came from the pit of his gut now, caught in his throat and came out hoarse and urgent. Oh, how he hoped she’d only wandered off into the wine cellar again. That she was safe, sloshed and red-faced, blissfully unaware of their visitor and this golden opportunity to prove her foolhardiness.

“Call my name, Belle!” he tried again, enlarging the fireball in his hand.

Suddenly, the dragon swung its head around to face him. The rest of its body followed unsteadily, and its side hit the wall with such force that the tapestries above trembled a threat. A pained screech followed the blow and rang through the room, revealing a maw full of teeth like jagged ivory stakes. Its weighty tail crashed into a suit of armor by the door, sending it clattering to the floor a useless heap of dented steel.

Startled by the sound, the creature began to advance. It looked a bit like a bat stuck in mud like that, lurching forward with clawed hind paws and unwieldy wings scraping against the floor for purchase.

Centuries of immortality had had little effect on his self-preservation instincts. Shuffling back on steady feet, with his eyes narrowed to a glare, Rumplestiltskin raised his fiery hand and prepared to strike —

— but didn’t.

Because while the clattering of steel died down and the pieces of armor shuddered to a stop on the floor, the dragon had ceased all movement and its screech had petered out into a pitiful whine. A hound-like mournful tone that grew quieter as its fearsome jaws closed. That head of scales dipped down now, no longer rearing, no longer wild. Not quite a posture of submission, but Rumplestiltskin could sense no aggression in it either, and he felt some of the tension in his shoulders begin to ebb in response to the change in the air.

Breathing slow, deep breaths, the giant reptile’s head twisted ever so slightly clockwise. As if it was just as baffled with the encounter as he. And that impression floated quietly into the back of his mind and stayed there, caught like seaweed on a jagged rock. Even as his attention was drawn to the sight of a pair of thick membranes slipping horizontally over the dragon’s eyes and made them look like two moons behind a milky cloud, unblinking there underneath those sharply ridged brows.

Curious. He hadn’t looked anywhere near its eyes before that. That maw full of daggers had struck him as the main concern.

Less guarded in the unexpected calm, Rumplestiltskin became transfixed when those translucent third eyelids slid slowly back again, and revealed…

Blue eyes.

Cerulean. Or azure. Just… incredibly blue. A sea of blue beyond belief. A warm sort of blue, remarkably at odds with the mean slits of black right in the center of them. The longer he stared, the softer he became - lips slack, shoulders dropping, heart slowing - all the while a disarming feeling tapping him lazily on the back.

It was familiarity.

The fire spell in his hand fizzled out when the penny finally dropped. Like a boot on a snail.

“Belle?” he breathed, eyebrows shooting up.

No response. Not a ripple in the sea between them. Just those heavy breaths from giant lungs pulling in and pushing out like bellows, and the small wet sounds of his own mouth as he tried to swallow his shock. One after the other, the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place so seamlessly that there was barely any time for skepticism.

He lowered his hand, adopted a deep, calm tone, and tried again:

“Belle, is it you?”

Only a spider the size of a button on a mice’s vest could make it into the Dark Castle without leaving a trace, and all points of entry were still secure. The display cabinets behind him, however, had met with a more violent fate. One in particular, one that housed an item he had deemed too harmless for the vaults, an item he had thought a vault in and of itself, had received the brunt of the destructive force.

The nature of that force was crystal clear to him now as he risked a lingering glance over the debris scattered over the floor. There were scratches on the wood, claw marks on the carpet all askew under the table. The damage seemed about consistent with the forceful transformation of a certain wee mouthy lass into a winged harbinger of significant inconvenience.

Somehow, his disaster of a maid had bested the impossible lock on the dragonscale box he had been keeping - rather ill-advisedly, as it turned out - in one of the display cabinets. By accident, of course. She’d probably dropped it in just the right way to nudge a secret cog just this way or that, or perhaps he’d loosened the mechanism for her. Either way, she’d gotten her hands on it.

And look at her now! Undeniably guilty. Hilariously obvious. She was small for a dragon, but huge for a Belle, and there was no covering up her tracks this time. The corners of his mouth crept slowly up with that thought. Relief bubbled like an effervescent sort of lightness in his chest, tickled his sides, and made him burst out in ringing laughter. It was not an impish giggle. It was a belly laugh that made his shoulders shake.

When she jerked her head back and made a dry throaty sound, Rumplestiltskin bit his tongue and killed his laughter. He observed how tightly her neck had arched into an S-shape, how her pupils had blown suddenly wide in the beginnings of alarm, and he realized she might not even have understood what had happened to her.

As slowly as he could, he brought up his hands, palms outwards, to show her he meant no harm.

“It’s alright, Belle,” he spoke in the hushed tones he usually reserved for spooked horses and overly excited hounds.

She tilted her sharply angled head a bit to the side, shifted a hind paw antsily as he made a careful approach around the table. Rumplestiltskin squashed the impulse to move back and instead scanned the curve of her strong neck, where the amulet hidden inside the box would have fused itself to her the moment it touched her skin. A few links of a broken golden chain dangled from underneath one of her lustrous scales, catching the light.

_There._

“Steady now,” he murmured, taking a small step forward. “It’ll be alright. This isn’t permanent.” And another step. “If you’ll just let me see your neck -”

She convulsed when the flat of his boot tapped the wooden floor a little harder than he’d meant to. Her heavy tail crashed into the wall harder than it did before, with a harsh _bang_ and the trickling sounds of grout crumbling to the floor. His magic reacted in the blink of an eye, whirling him back to a safe distance. He reappeared just in time to witness one of the larger tapestries up against the wall flopping gracelessly down like a lifeless albatross — _right_ on top of Belle’s temporarily draconic head.

Blindness sent her into a full-blown panic, replete with frantic flailing of head, tail and limbs and a helpless wailing that flooded the rooms. When she banged her head hard against an overturned chair and broke one of its legs, her name tore itself raw from his throat:

“Belle!”

The tapestry began to glide down her neck, and she tossed her head around in an attempt to hasten the process. Though freed from her blindfold now, she was not the least bit soothed. With another harsh _thud_ , she fell against the wall again, flank first. For a moment, it felt as if the very foundations of the castle rumbled down below.

“Belle,” he tried, softer now in between her panicked sounds. Were the dragon’s instincts stronger than that tremendous little spirit of hers? “Belle, look at me, lass. Just -”

Another heartrending cry drowned out his words. In all her panic, she had stretched her wings just enough for the clawed end of one to get caught on the curtain. Fortunately, he had nailed those curtains well and truly down eons ago. But the momentary snag did nothing to calm his rampaging maid, whose talons proceeded to _rip_ their way out of the thick fabric all at once, sending her tumbling back into the wall again. On impact, she let out a deafening wail, chilling to the core.

She was a cornered animal. Frightened out of her mind and locked in a cage she didn’t understand.

Rumplestiltskin’s throat tightened with each passing second of indecision. His hands hovered aimlessly before him. He knew he couldn’t use his magic on her directly - not with any measure of confidence. Considering the dragonscale box itself was practically Dark One proof, a rushed attempt to remove the amulet in the state she was in had the potential to be utterly disastrous. His plans had been foiled by self-destruct spells before, and the thought of what might happen if - …

(He swallowed hard and blinked away an unbidden image of Belle’s red lips blooming into a smile.)

He had to retrieve the amulet manually, which meant he had to calm her first. Without magic.

_Any other way,_ he thought to himself as he glanced reluctantly at the doors leading into the entrance hall. She was by far the smallest specimen he’d seen in his lifetime, but the Dark Castle was not built to house a dragon regardless of scale, and there was certainly no calming one that considered itself trapped.

Belle was in pain, and there was no other way but to let her out.

Rumplestiltskin magicked away the first set of doors with a snap of his fingers, opening a path into the entrance hall. A pinching unease in his stomach stopped him on his first attempt to open the second set of doors leading out of the castle, but a quick look at poor miserable Belle proved enough to make him try again. Every slam of her head or her tail made him cringe, every screech of pain or plaintive wail resonated in his chest, and he knew - he _knew_ there was no other way.

So he held his breath shallow, pushed past the invisible barrier in his mind and made the great castle doors disappear into thin air.

There. There was the warm summer sky, framed rather beautifully by the empty doorways that led to it. Belle couldn’t see from where she was writhing pitifully in the corner. But then a gentle breeze rustled in and moved his hair into his eyes, and by the time he’d reached up and pushed it out of the way again, it had gotten very quiet in his castle indeed.

He opened his eyes and noticed that Belle had stilled. She was no longer moving and her breathing seemed to have slowed down. Rumplestiltskin scarcely dared move when she slowly turned her head to look over her shoulder, her neck arching elegantly. He could see her eyes now. Those thick membranes blinked down and up again. Her nostrils twitched, she stretched her neck a little further, and —

Oh.

She felt the wind. That feather of a breeze. She must have felt it keenly, despite the thickness of her armored skin.

“Belle?”

She made a rumbling sound, but there was no knowing if it was directed at him, and the question soon slipped his mind again when she began to move. Thumping, lumbering her way to the doorway, her massive tail swept aside the tapestry that had frightened her so on her way there, sending it crumpled and beaten into a corner of the room.

“Wings, dearie! Mind your wings!” Rumplestiltskin called out when her left wing scraped loudly against the stone on her way through the first doorway.

It was a bit of a squeeze, but after an endearing little wiggle accompanied by a noise that was rather owl-like, she managed to make it in the entrance hall where she promptly bumped her scaly head into the small round table in the center of the room, knocking it over.

Cringing visibly, he called out, “Was that really necessary?”

But the words sounded strained with his heart pounding in his chest as it was. He was only mouthing off just in case she was listening in there, sensing his nerves, making a mental note of it to mock him for it later. In truth, Rumplestiltskin wanted dearly to magic the doors back and keep her safe inside. There was an invisible barrier around the Dark Castle perimeter that served to keep most significant threats out, but it didn’t stretch up endlessly into the sky, and - …

No. She clearly had no idea how to use those wings of hers. That wouldn’t be an issue. Would it? He resolved to keep calm and reasonable and followed her noisy gait out of the castle and towards what she might have thought was freedom.

Those last few feet out into the sun were rushed and unsteady. Chirping strange excited noises, Belle thumped and scraped her way onto the stone path and then quickly off again, straight onto the grass to the side. The increasing volume of her chirps told him the feeling of the cool grass underneath her feet was a welcome one, and he very nearly smiled despite the gravity of the situation.

“Belle,” he began, speaking slowly and clearly. When she ignored his appeal and lifted her head to blink up at the evening sky with an obvious curiosity, he spoke louder. Hurried. “I can change you back if you let me take back the amulet, Belle.”

There came no reaction, no hint as to whether she’d understood. Rumplestiltskin took a few tentative steps closer, but stopped at the edge of the stone path. He didn’t want his proximity to send her into another fit of panic.

“Do you understand?”

No answer. This draconic Belle was very vocal - no change there - but she was not verbal in the slightest, and communication up to now had been worryingly one-sided.

She began to unfold her white wings. Two tentative sails on a windless ocean, blindingly bright in the sun, ready to catch the wind. Though he sincerely doubted her ability to take flight, Rumplestiltskin found himself raising his hand to bid her to stay.

“Ah! Of course, I can only remove the amulet if you remain here, Belle,” he warned her, trying to keep the impish lilt in his voice so as not to sound as if he were begging. “It’s stuck between your scales, and I can’t use my magic to remove it. Well, I suppose I could, but there _is_ the small matter of a few nasty side effects. Death and such. Bit of a hassle. So it’s in your best interest to stay calm while I… I, uh…”

Ahh, but she was paying him no mind at all. She lifted her clumsy, massive upper body, resting the weight on her legs and tail as she reared up. Then, with a _whoosh_ that blew Rumplestiltskin’s hair back, she flung out her wings and spread them to the fullest.

His head flash flooded full of doubts, so easily squashed mere moments ago. Was she really flightless? Was she even in there still? Was she still -

“Belle!”

His voice cracked. He hated that. But the urgent noise he made got her to turn her head his way, blue eyes torn from the sky for just a second to meet his pleading stare.

“I’m the only one who will want to change you back! I’m the only one who knows who you are. What you’re _not_.”

If Belle was conscious in there, which he had no choice but to believe, then she would have picked up on the implications he hadn’t vocalized. He was confident in that, and grateful for it. They were things that would taste terrible on his tongue if he spoke them aloud — Dark One or no.

“You know this, Belle. Don’t you?”

She stared at him unblinking in a moment that stretched itself longer and longer. He only remembered to breathe when her head made a slight movement that he couldn’t read. A nod? Agreement? Understanding? A random, meaningless twitch of the muscles she had yet to get used to?

It stopped mattering when with a decisive screech, she began to beat her wings - up, down, up, down - making sounds like a heaving windmill on a gusty day. It came natural to her; somehow she knew to attempt a small running start, to bend her knees, to launch herself up with all the might in her legs, to take advantage of the momentum with a crucially timed downstroke of the wings, and…

Awestruck, Rumplestiltskin watched as his maid took flight. It was a slow and inelegant business, but it was more than he had thought her capable of, and now he was fearful in all this uncertainty. Was this where it ended? Where he lost - …

_Don’t be weak._

Belle, chatty as ever, crowed victoriously as she labored her weightier body just a bit higher with every stroke of her wings. But there was no reason to worry yet, Rumplestiltskin told himself. None at all. Yes, true, she was heading straight towards the eastern edge of the castle grounds, but she had quite a ways to go yet. And he couldn’t use his magic on her, but could he not use it in an indirect way? To herd her back somehow?

But what if his actions threw her off balance and made her come plummeting down? He couldn’t cushion her fall with his magic directly; he’d have to do it literally. Summon an enormous mattress? Or perhaps do a bit of impromptu landscaping and conjure up a modestly sized lake. Did dragons float, generally?

Rumplestiltskin’s heartbeat grew fussier the nearer she flew to the perimeter and the invisible barrier around the Dark Castle grounds. He hadn’t felt so helpless in a blessedly long time, even with his hand raised and poised to foil her escape, magic tingling at the very tips of his fingers in anticipation. What a dreadful, unforgivably pitiful feeling. Heavy in his stomach until -

\- she curved. Like she’d done it a million times before, she rolled her body and altered her course. Her head went first, and the rest of her body followed like a perfect wave that ended with a flick of the tip of her surprisingly flexible tail. Her wings were outstretched as both sail and rudder, slicing effortlessly through the air. He thought she meant to coast along the barrier in the hopes of finding a gap, but that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t following the barrier.

She was coming back.

And not just that, but heading straight for him in a swooping dive!

He couldn’t move. No - _wouldn’t_ move. It was the tremendous amount of confidence in his own magic that kept him fixed in place there. Nothing else. He was nothing like a roe deer in the stare of a lynx.

… Still, he caught himself letting out a shivering breath when Belle passed right overhead with a proud roar. She flew so close to the ground that he might have jumped up and brushed his fingers against the scales of her belly if his limbs had worked and the spirit had moved him.

In her wake came a gust of wind that blew his hair back for the second time that day. Eyes open wide, he shuffled around to watch her soar towards the other side of the courtyard. He could do little else with his limbs so weak with awe, but that was alright for the moment. She made quite the sight, after all.

Her pearly scales had stood out perfectly against the blue sky in the east, but the sun was sinking in the west where the sky was yellowing, glowing, burning at the horizon. This light warmed the cold pale sheen of her scales, like sunshine on a shallow brook with a bed of marble chips. She shone up there. Glimmered as she went up and over the barrier, as if she could see it somehow. That was impossible, of course, but there she was regardless, just skirting the magical wall, following its curving path perfectly until she went back over headed his way once more.

Rumplestiltskin braced himself, but Belle spared him the dramatic vocalizations on her next hair-tousling pass. When she reached the eastern side of the barrier again, she crossed it and flew a little further away from the castle than she had done before. He held his breath. His hand was still raised, ready to erect a second barrier and conjure up a guiding wind to bring her back, but a small voice in the back of his mind whispered, “Wait. See. She knows.”

Belle was not safe out there in a world full of monsters more vicious than a regular garden variety dragon. He trusted she knew that perfectly well, and brave though she was, Belle was not the fool he liked to paint her. She might be showing him, by means of a pattern slowly expanding but always recurring, that she had no plans to fly away for good.

Yes. That was a good theory, Rumplestiltskin decided.

With a small puff of a sigh that relieved some of the pressure in his chest, he put his hands on his hips and watched her coast above the dense forest of pines in the east. Wings were tempting things, weren’t they? Enviable things. He could hardly blame the girl for wanting desperately to try them out. The promise of flight was a temptation altogether more powerful than most would ever fathom. Rumplestiltskin had learned that a very long time ago.

He wasn’t sure where that particular thought had come from (somewhere cold and dark and dusty, no doubt), but now it was lodged in his throat. Just for a moment. He clenched his jaw and a wry smile flickered in and out of existence on his face in a heartbeat. Just an unpleasant memory, that was all. Nothing that a bit of dragon spotting couldn’t fix.

In fact, the Dark One found himself strangely… content, just standing there in front of the steps of the castle, watching his winged maid make the most of her magical mishap. When she first flew over the barrier, it felt a bit as if there was a thick rope looped around his chest, getting tighter the further she flew. But now… Well, there was still something of his that reached out to her, but the pull wasn’t so suffocating anymore.

The smile that made its way onto his face then was not a wry thing. Not a quick twisting of the lips to stave off a grimace.

It was simply a smile.

Lovely evening, really, Rumplestiltskin mused as he breathed in deep and sat himself down on the highest step in front of his doorless castle. Now he heard the cricket’s evening song. Now he smelled the grass Belle had trampled and cut, smelled a certain sort of flower in the air, almost heady like a sweet wine. Now he felt the breeze ruffle his shirt sleeves, felt as if it was truly summer.

Belle was but a small spot of lustrous pearl in the distance now, a minute’s flight away and weaving leisurely around the mountain tops, but never _ever_ out of sight. She was still her daring self, however, and couldn’t resist the opportunity to execute some interesting maneuvers: She raced close to the mountain flanks. She dove down towards the treetops and rocketed back up again when the birds dispersed in alarm. Rumplestiltskin’s heart jumped up and hit the back of his throat when her brave attempt at a barrel roll went a bit pear-shaped there above the valley in the north, but she managed to flail herself out of her sudden plummet just fine. With seconds to spare!

All the while, her chirping cries sounded fantastically joyous. With a quiet giggle, Rumplestiltskin wondered how many travelers and woodland creatures she’d frightened half to dead already.

Belle soon grew bored of playing daredevil, it seemed. She crossed the courtyard and flew west again. The bright hot glowing sunset made her look so incredibly golden up there. Unlike her two-legged blundering back inside the castle, her body was a flowing thing in the air. Lissom, nearly liquid, like a rolling field of wheat in the breeze.

When she flew back north-east, she seemed so much whiter against the darker blue sky above the mountains and the woods below. A few stars were dotted here and there, emerging just as the sun was dipping under the horizon. It occurred to him then that despite her curious nature, his maid had not yet discovered that she could -

“Ah.”

He couldn’t finish his thought. A bright plume of fire half the size of her body burst forth from her gaping maw with some excellent timing. Rumplestiltskin grinned wickedly, then burst out in laughter.

“Clever lass,” he said, smirking fondly.

When the sun had nearly set, Belle made another approach. Much slower this time, she came in from the north and followed the stone drive. Had she tired herself out, he wondered?

Rumplestiltskin pushed himself up and descended the steps of the castle, brow folded in concern. Flying was one thing. Landing was quite another.

She knew to use her massive wings to slow her descent, but she’d miscalculated the sheer mass of her borrowed body and landed with a thud that blew up the sand between the stones and cracked a few of them. The sound traveled into the castle where it echoed off the walls and vaulted ceilings for quite some time. He took a few careful steps forward while she settled on the ground, scanned her pale form with quick eyes for any wounds or perhaps a lone arrow from an ambitious hunter. Nothing stood out.

“Belle, do you understand me? Nod for me if you do.”

Her massive head dipped down, down until the tip of her snout nearly bumped into the ground. A very clear yes. He stood close enough to reach out and touch her now. She was breathing calmly, watching him with those endlessly blue eyes.

“Will you let me take the amulet now?”

She gave another nod, this time adding a little affirmative rumble. Smelled a bit… burnt, but Rumplestiltskin sighed, relieved that she was more communicative now. Relieved that she was _there_.

“Go on. Lift your head, then,” he said with a little wave of his fingers. “I need to see your neck.”

She obliged and lifted her head again, uncurling her neck, aiming her snout at the sky. He was glad to see those golden chain links still dangling from underneath one of her fist-sized scales. That certainly made things a bit easier.

He kept his voice deep and calm. “It’s lodged in between your scales. When you put on the amulet, it attached itself to your skin. I imagine that stung a bit, but it shouldn’t hurt when I remove it now. Can you lie down on your side for me?”

Belle purred her assent, and Rumplestiltskin stepped back to give her room. With a little grunt of effort, she _flopped_ down on her flank, one wing awkwardly pressed between her body and the stones underneath her.

He simply couldn’t resist a quiet, “No maid in this realm more elegant than mine.” 

Keen hearing, those dragons. Belle let loose a warning growl much louder than the purrs and grunts she’d been communicating with. But ah, one so rarely had the chance to antagonize a fire-breathing dragon without fear of consequences, and her little protest only made him smile more fondly.

“I know it’s tempting, but I wouldn’t roast me if I were you, dearie,” Rumplestiltskin joked, laughter in his voice. “It wouldn’t kill me. I’d just be quite upset.”

He shuffled a bit closer and reached out, and just as his fingers were about to make contact, something fluttered in his stomach. How odd that his mouth should dry up in that very second, how strange that he could do nothing but stand there and blink until Belle lifted her draconic head and aimed one of her perfectly blue eyes at him. Questioning.

He snapped out of it, turned his stare to the golden links and touched the scale that hid the amulet. It was just at the base of her neck where the scales grew softer and paler, where the warmth of her body seeped through her armor. He could hear her breathing. He could hear nothing else. Memories of cold nights curled up next to a sleeping sheepdog flitted into his consciousness and left again just as quick.

“I, uh,” he began with a little bit of a stammer. “I…”

He gave up on finishing his sentence when he realized he didn’t know what it was he wanted to say. Holding his breath to steady himself, Rumplestiltskin slid his fingers underneath the scale, and felt for the amulet. It was a small thing compared to the dragon that wore it - about the size of a large chestnut - and when his fingers wrapped around it, it began to thrum cold in his hand. It trembled, shook, vibrated until he jerked his arm back and flung it somewhere behind him. He heard it hit the stone steps and shatter, but Rumplestiltskin didn’t turn to look, because something was happening. Something was happening to Belle.

A bright light flooded forth from underneath each and every one of her overlapping scales. It was the whitest, purest, harshest light Rumplestiltskin had ever seen. A silent spectacle. He brought up his arm to shield his eyes from the sting reflexively, but then he forced it down again. He had to watch. He had to make sure that she was coming back. That she was alright.

The light soon lost its draconic shape. It began to shrink to a smaller shapeless form, growing smaller and smaller until it wasn’t quite shapeless anymore and became familiarly human instead. A human form, curled on her side, with two legs, two arms, and… curves…

_Naked!_

With a choked sound, Rumplestiltskin spun around and stared at the gaping maw of the castle instead, eyes as open as his bloody doorways and his stomach lurching. When the light began to fade, he snapped his shaking fingers and magicked a pair of shoes and a blue dress onto her body. His face felt hot, and he hoped he hadn’t missed. Oh, bloody _hell_ how he hoped he hadn’t missed! 

The first sign of life was a horrendously painful sounding cough that urged hum to spin around, his chest aching with concern. He rushed to her side, sank down to his heels and put an arm on her shoulder. Her _clothed_ shoulder, he noted to his relief.

“Belle?”

Her hair had fallen to partly cover her face. Her eyes were closed, but her brow was furrowing. The tip of her tongue brushed dryly against her parted lips, and then her eyes opened and found his.

_There you are_ , he thought, and Rumplestiltskin he allowed himself a quick smile.

But she startled it right off his face when she fell back into a coughing fit. She rolled away from him, wheezing and gasping, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head. It was as if she wasn’t used to these smaller lungs anymore. Rumplestiltskin reached out for her, but she was already scrambling up into a kneeling position, so he stayed put instead, watching his maid’s shoulders rise and fall with her deep deep breaths. Her hands were braced against the ground until she sat back and flung her thick brown hair back and away from her face. When she did that, it revealed something Rumplestiltskin hadn’t expected.

She had a grin on her brighter than her scales glittering in the sun. That was confusing enough, but when she threw back her head and let out a lively laugh, Rumplestiltskin’s jaw all but dropped to his lap. There were tears of laughter in Belle’s bright eyes. She crawled, giggling, off of the stone path and into the grass where she threw herself down on her back and then rolled over on her stomach.

He screwed up his face. What the hell was happening to her? Was it some sort of aftereffect of the amulet’s magic? Some form of magical intoxication?

“That was _wonderful!_ ” she mewled up at the sky, her voice hoarse but full of life. “It, it was just… It was amazing! And exhilarating and -”

She stopped dead in her tracks, her face frozen in a wide-eyed look. Concern creeped back into Rumplestiltskin’s throat, making it feel tight. But then she rose to her feet, unsteady and wobbly as if her limbs were now a little bit foreign to her. She turned towards the east and stood there swaying ever so slightly, gawping at the snow covered mountaintops in the distance.

“I was all the way up there,” she breathed in quiet awe.

“How did you get the amulet out of its box?” asked Rumplestiltskin, ignoring the warmth in the middle of his chest when her dreamy smile grew wider.

She was too busy taking her shoes off to pay him much mind and reply, it seemed. “It feels so _strange_ wearing those now!”

“Yes, that’s… certainly the strange part of the evening,” he deadpanned. “Now would you mind telling me how you accidentally opened the box?”

She spun around and gave him a strong look, her eyebrows knitted together and her lips pursed. “I just solved the puzzle lock,” she replied, giving a little shrug. “It’s easy if you follow the instructions.”

He was flummoxed. “Instructions?”

When her simple smile turned into something a little better described as a smirk, Rumplestiltskin realized he had given himself away. He painted on a neutral expression and hoped she did not mean to stare him down until he confessed his ignorance.

He was in luck.

“You know the book I’ve been reading?” _No. Not even the Dark One can keep up with your reading list._ “Yesterday I got to the part where the hero opens the treasure chest in the ghoul’s tomb, and buried underneath all of the gold was this strange box.”

Her eyes got wider on that last word. Rumplestiltskin made his smaller. “Carry on.”

“The description sounded awfully familiar. And, well, you have so many strange things in your possession. I thought perhaps I’d seen a replica while I was -”

“Snooping.”

“Dusting!” she insisted with a huff, putting her hands on her hips. “Later on in the story, the hero asks the kingdom’s archivist if there was anything in any of the records that might help him open the box.”

“And what book was this? I’ve searched every magic tome in the realm for -”

“It’s called _The Tale of Scales_ ,” she interrupted him, brow raised, lifting her chin proudly.

Rumplestiltskin made a confused face. “You mean to tell me the instructions to a puzzle lock on a genuine magical artifact older than myself were just there to be found in a work of _fiction_?”

She shrugged, gave a lopsided little grin. “I got it open, didn’t I?”

He couldn’t argue with that. And as he let himself stare at her playful smile for a smidgeon longer than he knew he should, Rumplestiltskin realized that he didn’t particularly want to. Not tonight, anyway. Not on a night as lovely as this. It could wait. All of it.

“I, uh… I know I made a mess,” she confessed. “I’m sorry about that. I couldn’t really control myself in there. And I promise I didn’t know the amulet was magical at all. I suppose I should have assumed it was, since it was in your possession, but… I didn’t know this would happen. I haven’t read that far yet.”

Belle looked down at her fingers playing with the fabric of her skirt as she talked, shooting him a quick glance from behind her unruly brown hair to gauge his reaction.

“No matter. No matter, I’ll ah. I’ll see to it. Just this once.”

She laughed a little, a soft sound stifled when she pressed her lips together tight. “Just this once. Got it.” She nodded very quickly. “I’ll mop up after the next rampage, then.”

Rumplestiltskin wrestled down a smile and forced himself to look away. He could see the state of the main hall from here. The candles and oil lamps had lit themselves once the sun had gone down. It was dark out now.

“I don’t want to go inside just yet,” she confessed in a soft tone.

Her voice was closer than he expected it to be, and it startled him. She moved silently on her bare feet, of course, but she’d gotten _quite_ close. She was stood right next to him now, her bright eyes, red with exhaustion, dancing over his face for a moment in which the sound of crickets ruled the evening air. He was just about to tell her that it was fine, he’d leave her to it, when she sat herself down on the stone steps and invited him to sit next to her with a little tug on his sleeve.

Bemused, Rumplestiltskin let her pull him down. The leather of his garments creaked as he shifted, but after that, they sat in complete silence. He put his hands awkwardly on his knees. Her arms were draped loosely over her lap, her toes curled and uncurled around the stone edge of the second to last step. The crickets chirped on and the sky grew starrier by the minute. The evening was gone. Night had come.

“The amulet,” she began.

“Mm?”

“Is it broken now? Is the magic gone?”

“I think so.”

She fell silent for a moment and chewed on her bottom lip in thought. She felt guilty, Rumplestiltskin could tell. Her shoulders were hunched and her face was doing that thing he couldn’t bear. He could only glance at her out of the corner of his eyes when she made that face. A face stolen from a week-old whelp.

“I’m sorry. Was it very important? Did you… need it?”

Rumplestiltskin sighed and leaned back, letting his elbows support the weight of his upper body. “Not in the grand scheme of things, no.”

“Oh. So a bit like the wine in the dungeon, then?”

He didn’t get it at first, but then he glanced at her face and saw a shadow of that same mischievous smirk she had plastered on her face that day he caught her three quarters deep into one of his bottles of red. The bottles he kept, but never drank.

“Perhaps in the sense that you’ve helped yourself to both. You do have a habit of touching things you shouldn’t, dearie.”

She giggled, raised her eyebrows and gave a quick, childish shrug. Oh, her eyes twinkled so. Distracted by the unadulterated mischief in her smile, Rumplestiltskin didn’t even notice her hand had been creeping towards him until it was already soft and warm on the back of his hand, and his immortal heart was testing its immortality by trying to pound a way out of his body via the pit of his stomach.

“I know.”


End file.
